Deaf in Hell
by AlyCat3
Summary: Sequel to Blind in Hell: Natasha just kept adding that red to her ledger, now with the spray of a team mate's blood all over it. Not a Death Fic!
1. Chapter 1

Wow, three years later! Ha-ha, sorry so much for having abandoned this website for so long, but once I got back into my writing vibe, I went back to this story. Been working on it most of the summer, and now here it is, ready to be posted.

Takes place before Age of Ultron, so JARVIS is still JARVIS, and not Vision.

Reading the first one isn't necessary, but one or two things will make more sense if you do.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers

Sadness Disclaimer: I wrote this before Civil War came out, and I feel like I'm the only one upset about the end of Pepperony

* * *

"Tony!"

At the shrill sound of Pepper's fast approaching voice and heels, said man quickly dropped his screwdriver, turned and faced the love of his life hands raised in the surrender position and declared, "I didn't do it! Unless I was supposed to do it, in which case I did it brilliantly."

"Oh you did it brilliantly alright," Pepper snapped, flashing a piece of paper under his nose. "What is this?"

Tony only briefly glanced at the bit of newspaper before going right back to grinning and asking, " What, so I agreed to a press conference. We did kind of recently save the world, again. It was called for."

"You know better," she huffed, "you know you're not supposed to agree to anything publicly without consulting the company first."

"I'm a big boy Pep," Tony scoffed, bending down to scoop up his fallen instrument before turning back to his project, "you worry too much, I've got it handled okay."

"No, not okay," Pepper replied, snatching the tool away from him, "you are coming up to the living room, right now, to go over a speech I've had to prepare for you in less than an hour."

"Hey, Pepper, come back with that!" Tony cried without any real heat. Honestly, if he wanted to he could scavenge about and find another one, but he followed her willingly up to the glass encased 'living room'. Of course they were the only ones of the Avengers that called it that, the others called it Peppers office with a view; feeling the term the couple used was to lose for such a grand area.

The huge glass wall that showed a beautiful angle of New York below paled in comparison to the woman standing before it, at least as far as Tony was concerned. He continued throwing such compliments at her, in hopes he could escape the office.

To be fair, the recent 'saving of the world' as Tony had called it, had blasted apart several glass buildings in New York, including the one behind his beloved. So the view wasn't tinted with all kinds of proof glass like normal. For now, Tony was still waiting on the stupid screw up contractors; honestly what was the use of people who weren't him again?

So focused was he on the redhead herself, neither took much notice as a projectile sailed right towards them, cutting through the normal glass like butter, missing Pepper's thigh by an inch, and lodging itself in Tony's lower leg.

Stumbling back in shock, he grasped hold of the thing lodged inside him, then despite Pepper's protests, he yanked it out; fury raging on his face. He opened his mouth to shout something, but the words died in his throat as his leg began spewing blood.

The arrow had struck an artery, and before the man could even fully processes this, he was on the ground, scrabbling desperately for a way to stem the bleeding while he cried out for Pepper to get out of here, there could be more!

She took no heed of his words, running forward and clasping hold of the limb, telling him he needed to calm down, that an ambulance would be here in just a moment.

Tony didn't hear any of this as he blacked out.

AAA

The gunfire pinging off of his shield was scaring him more in that moment than it had since he'd acquired his symbol. He should have known better. It was stupid, childishly so, to have thought this plan could work, and now here he was, stemming blood flow and trying to ignore his gut saying how pointless it was. He'd lost so much blood already, how much longer could he last before his so called enhanced body gave out?

'You've got to keep moving' his mind told him, but to where? He demanded right back. Surrounded by enemies on all sides with his wound, his only options left seemed to be either death or surrender.

AAA

"What no rants, no evil diabolical take over the world speech?" I slurred through a busted lip and blood continuing to drip down my face. With one more accurate punch that finally managed to snap a rib, my captors bid me a farewell, as silent as they'd entered.

With an echoing bang the only vibrations left, I turned to my partner wide-eyed and demanded, "We just had to get the silent ones. I like the ones that talk back, conversation keeps me going."

"Don't I know," Natasha's lips breathed out, tensing up her arms and legs for what had to be the millionth time in an attempt to break free of her bonds. I had given up on that aspect when I noted the chain link binding almost every inch of our skin to these metal chairs that were bolted to the floor.

Waking up like this should have bothered me a lot more, but then I would have to pretend this is the first time I'd woken up like this. It also did not happen to be the first beating I'd had to take. In fact despite their blows, it was almost childish to me. No all in all, what really began to bother me, was when I realized that my partner was in the same situation.

Not only did neither of us remember being ambushed, or any hint at all that might lead to this situation, but our captors had yet to demand information from us. So if they had us caught and felt the need to change our skin color to black and blue, while not demanding information, but had yet to kill us, what did they want?

This question bothered me more than I would care to admit, but that still wasn't the worst part of this situation. That just so happened to be the person in the room with me. There was only one other occasion since we had started our partnership did both of us get captured and held. Without the other to rely on for a rescue, we had quickly ran ourselves out of options, and only managed to make it out of that situation alive through luck, delayed answers to our tormentors, and Phil Coulson swooping in to save the day.

Now, there was no Phil to save us, and no questions to dodge to buy more time. It seemed we were here and alive for the express purpose of showing off our admittedly good looks.

Not even the other Avengers knew exactly where we were, unless Fury had disclosed that information after we hadn't checked in.

Worse still, I was suffering through all of this deaf. Having lost my hearing aids at some time during the struggle I couldn't remember only further fueled my mood.

'Sure, I can trundle through a jungle without issue, but some jerk straps me into the Seventh Circle of Hell, and I'm deaf as a-' I cut off my mental tirade as someone entered the room.

Someone new this time. He was definitely on the older side, with salt and pepper hair, wearing a nice Italian suite and walking with a cane. He took no notice of me, but walked over to Tasha and began talking with his back to me, leaving me unable to read the situation beyond Natasha's stoic face. Yeah, that didn't go over very well; I may as well have watched the ceiling for all the emotion you could read on her face.

Huffing and twitching, I tried shuffling my weight around yet again out of sheer boredom, then was startled into paying attention as I saw Natasha move.

She was talking to him, and even though I could read her lips I still had no idea what she was agreeing to do. Then she locked eyes with me as she continued talking, and I made out the words '-at least like to know why you want him.'

Confused, I opened my mouth to butt into this conversation now, then my chair shocked me! The how's didn't concern me, as most likely the electricity was arcing up from the plates below where the chair was bolted down, but the pain! I was suddenly grateful I no longer had my hearing aids in, or they would have been shocked into my brain.

How long that lasted I wasn't privy to, but by the time I had enough air back in my lungs and was glancing up, I finally saw emotion on her face. Nothing these people would recognize, in fact I would bet money that even the Avengers wouldn't see it, but I did. She responded back; and I didn't need to know it was in a flat emotionless voice 'What do you want?'

I, of course, didn't get to hear that answer either. All I knew was that whatever he did want, made The Black Widow's eyes darken. This couldn't be good. I felt like small bits were still shocking my brain, so I only caught a quarter of her response ' to kill- need a-'

Then I was being electrocuted again, which didn't feel any better than the first time.

It stopped as suddenly as it had started, and when my eyes blurred back into focus, Natasha was being unlocked from her chair, and standing with her usual grace. I grinned maliciously to myself, watching that redhead kill this whole room was better than any movie, but then I looked her in the eyes again; and I saw it.

She was trying to tell me, without actually saying it aloud. 'Sorry'.

'Great,' my inner monolog continued 'welcome to the ninth circle.'

* * *

Confused yet? Good. I like my audience to be scratching their heads until the end, hope you enjoy.


	2. Chapter 2

48 Hours Earlier

Tony received the information from the last source he would have expected, Bruce in Texas.

He forgot the reason he was down there, and he didn't have the inclination to ask once he had relayed what he had learned. Vengeance took hold of him, but he also recognized this was one job he couldn't do on his own. So he made the call for the Avenger's to assemble while he formed a plan.

AAA

Steve Rogers slumped back into his chair, pulling back his cowl and glaring about the dark room. There was no one else in there.

He had a million questions on his mind, none of which had been answered since SHIELD had shown up and practically dragged him here. The only reason he'd come along was because one of the agents had consisted of Maria Hill, one of the few people he actually trusted after SHIELD wasn't considered SHIELD anymore.

Those same questions kept jogging around his mind like a mad hamster, and drumming his fingers on the table somehow wasn't giving him answers. When the information did finally arrive, it wasn't by person.

Tony sent him a pre recorded hologram, saying that they had found him. He then went into a few vague details of the plan he already had in place. He'd already contacted Clint and Natasha, and said they should arrive at his location in exactly an hour since he already had someone on the way to get them. To replay the message, he was supposed to hit a little red button on the side.

Steve couldn't decide how he felt about all of this, it had happened to fast. Not to mention he'd had no say in the plan, but still...

Finally after two years they had gotten the bastard that had put them through hell.

AAA

"Typical," Natasha snorted as she gazed down at the cadaver "pathetic to the end."

"This was hardly even fun" Clint agreed, slinging his bow over his back and looking down almost bored at the dead man. They called in their contact who had set them on this job, then lazed around waiting for their extraction team. Then continued waiting.

After being patient for the first half hour, Natasha couldn't even blame Clint for making an inpatient call back to base, or his choice of words when he didn't get a response. She tried to console herself that they were in the middle of nowhere, some miscommunications could occur, especially since the downfall of SHIELD meant that they weren't nearly as up as they once were. Exposing them the way she had kind of left there reliable resources either hiding out, dead, or hunted. Only there Avenger's status had saved her and her partner from those three categories, the rest and most trusted had mostly been employed by Stark.

Since Stark's tech was anything but inaccurate, that left her mind to circle back and flounder what was going on.

She had worked through all of this in the time it had taken Clint to attempt, and fail, his phone call, so it was in understanding clipped tones she told him "I don't like this. How about we leave this here for someone else to deal with?"

Clint nodded, accepting this readily, and the two made to leave when the explosion rendered the world black and red.

* * *

The obligated set up chapter that I didn't want to post as the first chapter, because where's the fun in that? More action and fun stuff next update.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony groaned as he awoke. He wasn't even confused, he'd woken up with a worse headache then this, so the first real thing out of his mouth was "JARVIS, what time is it?"

Nothing.

He frowned and sat up, looking around himself in utter confusion for the first time. He was in a dark room. There was no light, and definitely no JARVIS, so what had happened? The last thing he remembered was…had he been arguing with Pepper… he'd been shot with an arrow… they had been in his tower…

Fear made him attempt to gallop to his feet, only to be brought right back down with a cry of pain as he looked down at his artificial leg. It was still dark, but the light of his reactor let him look down and see his left leg, where the false skin quite suddenly no longer covered the wiring beneath. There was still a deep hole, wide enough he could shove his pinky in, which was probably the reason he wasn't very mobile. That worry only lasted a few seconds as he looked more closely into every crack of this room, searching for a particular redhead, and both relived and all the more worried when he didn't see her. If Pepper wasn't here with him, then that either meant she hadn't been kidnapped like he so obviously had, or she was somewhere here other than this room, possibly being tortured? The thought made him want to vomit, so he quickly pressed past that and determined to think about something else.

Had Clint shot him! Why, mind control? Had Clint, Steve, and Natasha gotten his message? Had the same person they'd finally tracked down after three years managed to get to him first, somehow possibly carousing one of his friends into killing him? Was Pepper okay? He had no answers, no one to ask, and were the walls closing in on him?

AAA

Steve grew worried at once when the minute hand came, and went, without Natasha and Clint appearing. There were a dozen, perfectly viable, absolutely reasonable explanation as to why they could be late.

Still, his gut was twisting in worry and terror as he finally exited the conference room. Sadly, he had no means of communication to the two agents, since last he'd heard they'd been out on assignment. He'd feel rather foolish if he walked away now and the other two appeared like Tony said they would, but there was a niggle that wouldn't let him go saying something wasn't right here. His only thought now would be to get in contact with Bruce, Tony had mentioned that's where he'd gotten his information from. Yet after giving him a call and still getting no response, he gave up and simply began making his way towards Stark tower.

Then of course he got there to find news van's everywhere. While not completely out of the norm, this wasn't the usual entourage of 'What were the Avengers wearing today?' No, the police, firetrucks, and ambulances still lingering around meant he had missed something. He'd put his cowl back on when he'd left the SHIELD safe facility, so the crowd parted for him willingly as he made his way to an officer and demanded "What's happened here?"

The man gave him a pitying look, as if to say 'you don't know?' but answered anyways "Mr. Stark was shot sir, he and Miss Potts are on their way to the hospital now."

AAA

She was finally doing it. The one thing she'd threatened to do a million times over, though very rarely meant it, and had never intended upon doing it. Yet here she was, lining up her shot, prepared to kill Tony Stark. This was not the first time she'd used Clint's bow to complete a mission, but it was the first time the weapon had felt so wrong in her hands. The string seemed to taught, the quiver on her back seemed to way her down. Yet she loosed the arrow, and watched as it struck the target.

She waited just long enough for authorities to arrive, but then she disappeared, determined not to look back. She didn't hesitate when she saw the familiar motorcycle approaching, hopefully Steve would figure it out along the way, for now she had to get back and save Clint's life.


	4. Chapter 4

Okay, so the walls were definitely NOT closing in on him. Deep breath's Stark, you've lived through this stupid claustrophobia thing before. He spent a long time just staring at the walls, convincing his brain they were not moving, and in the process noticed a few things.

No one had come or gone from this room, which meant either they were playing some kind of mind game on him and hadn't come to demand whatever they wanted yet, or there weren't any cameras in here and they just hadn't checked yet. Both options didn't help him much in the grand scheme, as it still didn't help with his ultimate question of where Pepper was.

Tony hated silence, and the pressing quite was as unhelpful as the six blank walls. What he wouldn't give right now for JARVIS just to play some tunes to get out of, wait! With quick, practiced ease Tony went rooting around in his false limb, his chest the only light source available so being extra careful of what he was tugging on.

It took him far longer then he would have liked, the lack of a soldering iron made for a tricky instance a few times, but in the end he was positive his idea had worked when a large explosion sounded from some far off area and his cell door opened.

AAA

Steve made it to the hospital faster than most of his flying companions could have, and probably broke a few traffic laws, but hey what cop was going to stop Captain America at those speeds.

He careened into the parking lot and sprinted inside in full uniform, bouncing impatiently behind a severely pregnant woman and a man holding a toddler in front of him, but when both caught sight of him they hopped almost comically out of his way and he only took the smallest amount of time to thank them and ask the nurse "Tony Stark please?"

The woman took the appropriate amount of time to balk at the super soldier before she tapped a few keys on her keyboard, and her brow ruffled up in confusion. "I'm sorry sir, ah Captain, ah-"

"Yes" he encouraged before she could keep floundering.

"Mr. Stark hasn't arrived yet, actually our head surgeon just made an inquiry to the ambulance and the police escort but we're not getting a response."

Steve had to slowly unfurl every one of his fingers from the countertop to stop himself from breaking it as he tensed up and instead said in a forced calm voice "thank you for your help."

He began to walk away, pulling his phone out, but at a loss as to who to call or what to do now. He'd tried calling everyone he knew on the way here and no one had answered, who else could he go to for answers? Then it came to him in one quick shot, and he tore back outside to his bike.

AAA

Natasha made her way slowly back to where Clint was being held, every step seeming to drag her closer and closer to where she belongs under the ground, and yet despite the guilt eating her alive, it was also at war with the peace trying to take place inside of her.

She hoped at least Clint would understand what she'd done, wouldn't turn his back on her and agree she'd made the right decision. Clint had a family to get back to, she really had done it more because of that then what she'd been offered, saving Clint's life was just a bonus. Of course if that were true then she wouldn't have thought of this after the fact, wouldn't have agreed to his terms the moment he released her and would have instead murdered them all in the blink of an eye.

After all, had she really done such a bad thing? Surely Steve would understand, him and Tony could hardly be called friends, right? As often as they bickered and fought, she was sure that Steve might just thank her for the moment of silence. Then her mind flashed back to his new life goal that had been consuming him for the past few months, more even then finding the man who had tried to kill him. He'd spent every second of his free time trying to track down his old friend Bucky, despite all of the terrible and cruel things he'd done. This must mean that even if he didn't understand what she'd done, he'd forgive her, right?

Then there was Bruce...oh how he would hate her. Tony had become a trusted friend to him over the past years, one of the only human beings who looked at Bruce as a person and not as a monster. She was probably going to spend the rest of her life running from said monster for taking that person away from Bruce.

Thor, probably wouldn't be a problem. He came and went so infrequently she wasn't even sure if he had any attachments to Tony at all.

She should even be thanked for this! Tony may be a good man now, but had what he was trying to do now make up for all those years! Tony was the reason every time the Avengers were dragged into the spotlight, he'd caused nearly every problem they had to go back and clean up. She'd done the world a favor by taking Tony out! Never mind that she wasn't any better, that her own life was worth even less then his...

And still she was only thinking on this now, after she'd done it, whereas none of this had been swimming in her mind as she'd pulled that fletching tickling her finger, as the arrow head found its target. No, all she'd been thinking of was herself, and what she'd been promised.

She made it back in time to the facility, to free Clint and receive her reward, when she heard the explosion.


	5. Chapter 5

Walking was difficult, and boy did he not miss this. It had taken him months to perfect his prosthetic, to incorporate the veins arteries and whatever else he'd put in there, plus keep the blood flowing through the animatronic limb to keep up appearances. Now if anyone ever questioned him he could laugh it off and poke at the false skin, and they could watch his false limb act like a real one so he wouldn't have to deal with any more flack about how little human he still was. Now he'd destroyed all of that hard work in no time, having dismembered the lot of it for the wires he knew he needed, having dragged himself to his door and finally releasing the electronic lock.

Plans for adjustments and improvements were his main focus as he dragged himself through endless corridors, scraping his mechanical leg behind him and mostly leaning on a wall for support as he made a right at every turn, trying to find an exit, or anything useful. Instead what he came across was trouble in the form of a computer room.

The computers were the good part, he could see some monitors in there and a few other things he could definitely make use of. The bad parts were the security guards inside, each with a baton on their hip despite the fact that most of them had glasses of the nerdish variety.

They were clearly not combat trained, but with him a limb down they still had the advantage as two of the four tried to rush him at once. A third began trying to dart past him, wheather to shout for help or get away from the hopefully scary and not pathetic looking Avenger. A fourth began typing hastily on his keyboard, probably updating his Facebook status before whatever happened.

While his later retelling would probably double up said amount of guys and courageously paint himself as having easily batted all of them aside, what really happened was a stroke of luck.

Tony made a move for one of the two rushing him, using his boxing training for a quick swipe at his jaw and his other hand trying to dart for his club to take him by surprise, but he overbalanced on his stupid, useless, genius work and instead crashed into both him and the worm trying to escape sending all three to the floor. His other hand still made the correct action and grabbed hold of the club, and he used their temporary distraction to begin whacking both of them over the head with it frantically, trying to ignore his own throbbing limb beginning to protest as of course he'd landed just wrong and his knee, the most sensitive joint where the prosthetic met real limb was now throbbing in pain.

While he was concentrating on them, he may or may not have forgotten about the third guy who was actually being a problem, and he'd blame that on head trauma, which the man gave by kicking him in the head. It was only a glancing blow, he clearly had no idea what he was really doing, but it got his attention.

While they may not have been unconscious, the two others weren't Tony's main concern now as he wobbled onto his back and struck out with his baton again, hitting the other man in his knees and surprising him enough he buckled, and Tony took the advantage to tackle him in that same area and bring him crashing to the ground and then repeated the process of hitting him as hard as he could in the temple a few times.

When he was satisfied he wasn't going anywhere, he looked around and found the other man still typing furiously, but despite trying several times Tony could no longer get to his feet to stop him from doing anything about it. Instead he spotted a swivel chair one of the others must have accidentally pushed into his range, and he would later deny how embarrassing and out of breath the struggle to haul himself into said chair was, but once there he used his good leg to propel himself and use his club to smash down on the wrists of the typists.

The man squealed in pain, and automatically retracted, and Tony took his opportunity before he could spin around to hit him over the head a few times as well, finally bringing the last guy down.

Satisfied with his work as he supervised all four, he shoved the man away and began inspecting the screen to see what this guy had been so intent on doing. It wasn't galaga.

It was a code, a long string that Tony only took a few moments to decipher as a command to blow up the base. He felt flattered for a moment that his appearance had caused this reaction in the guy, but then he pushed past that and fear began welling up in him as he realized he now had a timer to get out of here and find Pepper. He did take a few minutes to try and deactivate the command, but after three separate attempts blocked him and the fourth caused the timer to skip time and now he was in an even bigger hurry, he decided he was dealing with a programmer who knew what he was doing and he'd rather just get out alive.

He instead tracked back and found that security monitor he'd first noticed, but after flipping through several screens he found the majority of them empty. No Pepper, hell there was hardly anyone else here period. He came across another cell which may have been holding an occupant, but he flashed right past when he didn't see the distinctive love of his life, he also came across a man with salt and pepper hair having to use a cane to hobble along towards a helicopter landing sight, though he didn't spend time trying to figure out what he was up to. He might go back to him as he was the only other person he'd found in this endless place, and once he finally circled through the whole feed and came across no red head he decided Pepper really wasn't here.

Instead he flipped back to the count down, both the one on his monitor and the one that had been playing in the back of his head since he'd sat down at this computer and sent his message to JARVIS.

The command was simple and should be arriving any second now.

AAA

Steve came storming into Avengers tower and even before he turned his bike off in the parking garage he was screaming "JARVIS, please tell me you have some sort of location thing on Tony."

"Not currently sir," the crisp british voice responded at once, causing Steve to slump down in his bike, feeling more useless by the second. He was just fixing to keep going, ask if the AI knew anything about Clint and Natasha when JARVIS kept going on his own, informing him "Miss Potts and Dr. Banner are currently on the 53rd floor and are now awaiting your arrival sir."

Steve finally felt a flash of hope as he lunged from his bike in such a hurry he nearly forgot about his kickstand and instead threw his helmet over his head with such force he expected to find a crack in the concret later as he fully ran to the elevator and had to come to a skidding halt and bounced impatiently to get to them. Stark Tower may be one of the most, if not the most according to the man himself, high tech building in the world, but it didn't make the elevators any less slow, in fact the only major difference Steve had found in this and others was that instead of obnoxious elevator music Tony had gotten his to play obnoxious whatever that noise he listened to in his workshop to play instead.

Normally Steve would have told JARVIS to shut it off the moment he stepped in, but for now he forced himself to concentrate and listen to the pounding words as a distraction until he came barreling out at the stop and nearly bowled over Pepper and Bruce.

"Thank god I found you" he gasped, and not from being out of breath. "Are you okay, is Tony? I thought you were in Texas" he directed that last thing at Bruce more out of confusion and just wanting an answer to anything at this point.

Pepper laid a soothing hand on his shoulder, though it was shaking so hard it wasn't doing its job. Her face was nearly as white as the marble floor, and her voice couldn't stop quaking no matter how much she was trying to stop it as she said "breathe Steve, we'll figure out what's going on. We'll find Tony, he was shot with that arrow in his false leg, but I didn't realize that until after he was gone. I had JARVIS replay the footage and-" she faltered and her voice failed her and Steve had to fight down the urge to go hug her in comfort she looked so near tears.

"It's going to be okay Pepper" Bruce promised "we will find him" he repeated his words back to her with much more conviction then she'd managed before turning to Steve with a grim face and saying "I was on my way back when I got word from one of my contacts about a man name Jonathan Walsh, he had ever connection Tony's program had been looking for as to what happened to you guys back in that jungle. He's got all the resources, the grudge against SHIELD and the Avengers, plus he's been trying to dig into you, his interest peice. I forwarded it to Tony, Clint, and Natasha, but last I got word the last two were on a private mission for Fury, I wasn't even sure if Tony had gotten my message because he never responded."

"He got it" I confirmed "he forwarded it to me, but no one showed up at that meeting. Have you been able to get ahold of Clint or Natasha at all?"

His face was all the answer Steve needed, but then something of what Pepper said caught up to him, and he did a double take as he turned back to her and blurted "did you say arrow?"

She nodded, looking as alarmed as he felt as she affirmed "that's what hit him, and it can't be a coincidence, can it?"

This clearly wasn't news to Bruce, but he looked more like he was trying to smother any feelings he had about this. Steve on the other hand felt his mind begin tumbling in several worse directions, his most favorable was that this was just some elaborate prank Tony and Clint were trying to pull on all of them that was in no way funny.

Before anyone else could offer up anything JARVIS spoke again "Miss Potts there is a message from you from a mister Walsh, and he is most insistent."

Bruce startled as he looked up to the ceiling, and Pepper gave him an anxious look before saying "put it through on audio only JARVIS."

There was only a beat of silence before an unfamiliar voice came floating down to them. "Hello Miss Potts, and to anyone else present. I'm going to make this as simple as possible, I've passed along coordinates to where you will find Mr. Stark. Captain America is instructed to come alone. There is no deadline, but be aware that it matters not to me the physical condition of Stark, for example how much he was bleeding out when I left him, that's at your discretion. That will be all."

AAA

How long had passed since Natasha had left me like this, I had no idea. Not long after she had walked out of the room, another man came in and injected something into my neck. After that, time became a lucrative thing. What the point of drugging me now was, I had no idea, but I was hardly in any more of a position to protest.

I then blamed the drugs on the fact that my eyes could no longer focus on anything; that the door bursting open had no effect on me, any more than my glancing around and landing on a gaudy gold and metal suite.

I had never fully appreciated just how scary the Iron Man suit of armor could be. Maybe it was because Tony's voice coming through it put a more comical edge to the idea of a flying robot. It probably had something to do with the air of mystery being torn away by the second the man revealed himself of the mask. Now, the set features sightlessly locked on and the familiar whine of a repulsor starting up aimed at my face, fell on deaf ears. I finally understood the look of fear that tended to cross a few faces. It was probably on mine. Even in my drugged state, I had the sensibility to flinch as the blue light momentarily blinded me.


	6. Chapter 6

"Come on Arrow, up you get."

Tony became all the more concerned when Clint didn't react one little bit to his talking to him, but instead leaned heavily into him and muttered something about Natasha.

"I'm sure our itsy bitsy spiders just fine," he soothed, dragging him along as fast as he could, now much more easily done by the support from his suit acting like a cast to his limb. Of course he had no real idea, he hadn't come across her in his scans of this place and now his mind was spinning around trying to figure out how she fit into all of this. Then again he was still trying to understand how any of this fit together. Most reasons for his kidnapping involved lots of threats about how he was to build weapons for insert evil bad guy and his perfectly reasonable response of no. This time though he hardly seemed to be the target.

Tony had always been a multi tasker, so as he dragged his friend through this compound he'd memorized towards the helicopter landing he managed to try and think through as many possibilites about this as he could all while keeping Clint upright and moving. They just made it outside in time to take in some very key details.

Natasha was kneeling behind a row of box cars, Clint's usual weapons in her hands, and Tony's first thought would have been to aim his repulsor at her in fear of another arrow hitting him again, but the main attraction was the fire.

That man Tony had seen heading for the helicopter had been delayed, by Captain America. If Tony was reading the machine parts strewn around, his best guess, which was always the correct answer anyways, was Steve had actually launched his motorcycle into the contraption.

It hadn't seemed to cause any one person harm besides Steve's now bleeding side, one hand pressing into the stem clearly not making a dent, and surely the bullets hailing him were helping nothing.

AAA

Natasha was sure her eyes were deceiving her, Tony wasn't dead! All of her justifications and excuses fell away in that moment of relief upon seeing Tony Stark actually standing there, supporting her best friend, and watching on in fear. Even a limb down, he gently set aside a clearly out of it Clint and tried to come forward to their captain's aid, still putting his back to Natasha though he had every reason in the world to hate her more than anyone right then.

Her deal be damned, Natasha rushed to Clint's side, encouraging him to sit up straight with one hand all while keeping the other an a feathered end, ready to pull the bow taught any second should anyone be foolish enough to approach.

"Tash?" He tried to slur out, and she knew shushing him would do no good, so quickly signed for him _stay down Clint._

He did as told even if he didn't understand why, staying limp in her grasp as she pulled him out of harm's way. His eyes remained unfocused the entire time, but now that she had him behind the boxcars she took her time to look over the others again.

Tony had successfully taken down the gunmen, Steve had kept himself standing despite the growing pool of blood under his boots, and Natasha was ready to step in and keep those two idiots alive no matter what the Red Room had in store for her afterwards.

Raising the bow ready, she stormed forward and yelled, "Blank!"

Light travels faster than sound, so the soft light of the sun glinting off the arrow head sank into his body even before her shout had registered. She pulled for another one. Finally, Clint's weapon felt right in her hands again. "The deal's off," she barked as she drew closer, releasing another arrow, this one landing in his other kneecap, directly parallel to the other.

Her old trainer fell to the ground, but there wasn't a trace of pain on his face as he gave all three of them a crooked smile as they closed in.

"I don't know what you're smiling at." Tony stated, his repulsor carefully aimed at the mans elbow incase that needed to go next. "Did you really think you could get away with blowing us up twice?"

Blank just laughed, but there wasn't a trace of real feeling in there, just as he'd been trained. Natasha felt ice crawling up her spine as memories of her own self in this moment returned to her.

"It wasn't about killing you Stark, or even Rogers," he said in an actual causal tone of voice, like he wasn't bleeding out and in immense pain. "It was all about Barton, to show our Black Widow we still know how to help her."

"The deal's off," she snarled, the string nearly invisible in the sharp lighting. "Kill this idiot yourself, and you'll have me to deal with instead."

"I liked our first arrangement better," he had the audacity to give her a little pout, like a child complaining to mommy his friends weren't playing fair. "But I suppose you'll have to find some other way to give Barton that antidote, he's probably over there chewing his own fingers off he's so addled. It's to bad, I'd really been hoping you'd all killed each other before we got to this part, but I suppose this is even better. Now, I know what you Avengers are really like, I can tell you exactly what's going to happen next."

"And who'd tell you such a thing?" Steve demanded, his arms tensing more every moment, ready to bounce his shield off this man's head to put him unconscious any moment.

"A little birdie told me," he said with what he probably thought was a clever innuendo.

"Oh wow, you used a bird joke on _Hawk_ eye, how clever." Tony snarked back. Ignoring the genuinely confused and rather concerned look now adorning Clint's face as he peaked around his safety.

"Laugh now Stark, but I'm sure I'll still get in the last quip." Blank snapped, his eyes still gleaming with that manic light. While she had understood why it was there back when this person had come to visit them, now it just seemed odd. He was dead, there was no way he could get out of this-

"Oh shit" Stark hissed.

"What," Steve demanded, but Tony was no longer listening as he told JARVIS to get him into the air.

* * *

The last multichapter...chapter. The last one will be the end of this fic for good, then I'll actually make myself focus on another project I decided to start without finishing, because I'm always full of good ideas like that.


	7. Chapter 7

The suite was overheating. He was being cooked alive inside of the once protective metal, his face screen was splashing colors at him like a rainbow, and he was so high off the ground that if he released himself it would be akin to a comet crashing below.

Of course that had been his plan all along. Better he let the suit explode up here where no one could come to harm, rather than down below with his team still surrounding him.

JARVIS was nothing but static in his ear, his commands to the AI having stopped working a few seconds after he had commanded to be launched into the air. He wasn't sure if that had been part of the bomb, the one that must have been in his leg the whole time that he was sure Natasha hadn't even been aware of. Now he was trying to manually pilot the ticking time bomb he was in, higher. Just a little higher...

Once he had reached the altitude his mental math confirmed he was no longer a threat, his fumbling fingers tried to find the manual release valve.

His fingers felt like bloated sausages in the usually snug glove, his whole body seemed determined to sweat out the remainder of his life before the boom even went off. Still he climbed, higher and higher, the sky starting to turn black in the middle of the day... he got it. Suddenly he was falling just as fast as he had been flying, his screams silently ripping from his throat. There was no oxygen up here, no way to control his fall. He had tried to summon another suite to him, but had no way of knowing whether the command had been received through the fried wiring.

He had been unconscious, (not dead his mind still denied) from that fall through the alien portal, now he wished for that.

Impossibly fast, even faster than his mind could keep up, the ground continued to rush closer. Still air depraved, still flapping around like a useless bird, the only comfort he knew he'd have was the bright fireworks above saying that his suite and detached leg had finally exploded out of harm's reach.

He saw water far below him, which was odd since he hadn't taken off around water, guess any hope of maybe someone catching him was gone. His manual piloting must have been worse than he thought if he had flown more diagonally than vertically like he had been intending, perhaps he should work on that, oh wait there's the ground coming in way to sharp a focus.

He was pleasantly surprised that he could still think so calmly. His mind continued doing calculations as he plummeted, politely informing him exactly the velocity that he would impact the dark waters continuing to grow beneath him.

Who knew the Hulk moved that fast.

He had no clue if his big green friend had run all the way here from the state he'd started, or if the temptresses of fate just weren't quite done with him yet and wanted to keep him alive awhile longer, but whatever powers that be, Tony Stark was once again saved by his indestructible buddy launching himself into the air and catching him, though his own speed dragging them back down still quantified. The thing about this green skin though, was it wasn't just bullet and fireproof, it was thankfully impacting water so hard normal skin and bones would shatter proof as well, so when he took the brunt of the fall, all Tony got for his troubles was a lot of sputtering and bubbles.

The team was waiting for them on the waters edge, Clint still having to be supported and the Allfather only knew if he'd understood a portion of what had been going on this whole time. Blank was either dead or being lead away by SHIELD somewhere, and Tony didn't care which because this was over, so all he had left to say was, "damn, do you know how long it's going to take me to build another one of those legs."

* * *

This came out really choppy and bad in the end. I really hope someday I'll learn my lesson and actually finish a fic before I post so this won't happen again, but I hope you at least kind of enjoyed what came out of it.


End file.
